Pimpin' ain't easy

But it's probably a little easier if you don't locate your brothel right across the street from a police station.

The Galindo Avenue apartment got a lot of use. But nobody actually lived there.

A former-Fairfield couple who rented it pleaded no contest Monday to charges they ran a brothel there for a year -- directly across the street from the Concord police station. They used the Internet to employ prostitutes and market their service to customers.

Debra Watts, 52, pleaded no contest to three felony counts of pimping and pandering, and will serve one year of home detention, said prosecutor Jose Marin.

Her husband, Ernest Watts, 63, entered the same plea to one misdemeanor count of maintaining a house of prostitution.

On the other hand, the article says that the cops didn't actually find out about the whole operation until an informant told them about it in exchange for leniency on an unrelated fraud charge. Pretty observant there, guys.

The defense attorneys in the case provide some of the best comedy in the whole story, though.

As part of the terms of their probation, the couple cannot work in any kind of business that relates to prostitution. Before Monday's sentence, they had moved to Las Vegas.

"It's kind of ironic, for the crime they were charged with," said Debra Watts' attorney, Craig Pinto.

Uh, actually, that doesn't really sound very ironic at all, Mr. Pinto. Now please, put away that Alanis Morissette CD.

Remarkably, though, that wasn't the most unintentionally hilarious thing uttered by an attorney in connection with the case. Check this out:

"What's wrong, even if prosecutors were able to prove their case, with consenting adults going to a safe place for safe sex?" said Eric Saphire, Ernest Watts' attorney.

Apparently, this man who ostensibly went to law school and passed the California State bar exam at some point, is unfamiliar with the concept that prostitution is against the law.

With that kind of representation, I'm frankly surprised that Mr. and Mrs. Watts got away from this without any prison time.